


No :Pie: on the Archive, but :Tea: Forever

by supergreak



Series: Wrangler!Verse [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Organization for Transformative Works RPF, Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Universe - Tag Wranglers, Anthropomorphic, Apologies to Melannen, Character Death Fix, Children of Earth Fix-It, Crossover, Gen, In more ways than one, Life Model Decoys, M/M, Sorry Not Sorry, Tags Are Fun, Wranglers Are Not Adult Supervision
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-11
Updated: 2014-02-11
Packaged: 2018-01-11 20:32:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1177600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supergreak/pseuds/supergreak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was all rather confusing. He knew he died on Downey Street, with the 456, but then his consciousness woke up as...part of a fanfiction archive.   With all this...fandom-y stuff in his head.  Still, he was an archivist, so he kept it running as best as he could.</p>
<p>Or: Ianto's not really dead, Jarvis makes a friend, Tony Stark is a Good Boss, and they manage not to break the Archive in the meantime.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No :Pie: on the Archive, but :Tea: Forever

**Author's Note:**

> Ignores Torchwood canon past Children of Earth and canon for many other fandoms. Rated T for the language and Captain Jack Harkness.
> 
> Advance apologies for the sheer crackiness of this.

 

The archive was like a vast white room, red trim, filled with shelves, walls lined with drawers of various sizes, rolling hampers tucked into an alcove. In one corner, there was a cozy nook with a computer terminal and an armchair.  A pot of tea that never ran out or went cold sat on the sideboard, next to a tin of biscuits. He knew it was just a mental construct, but the motions of walking around and manually cleaning up the Archive probably kept him sane; after all, the human mind was not equipped to exist in a purely virtual world.  

There were no doors. Ianto tries not to thinks about it.

And then, well, he wrangles.  Ordinary wrangling duties of course, and the bins and No Fandom, and Raking up the floor.  Sometimes he could hear the Wrangulator humming cheerfully in the backdrop of sound (another thing keeping him sane) and sometimes it whined, caught on a rogue tagset.  He couldn't fix that, of course, he didn't do hardware. But he Archived quite well most days.  Including sweeping up the lost tags and tossing them back in the bins.  Staff tasks, like undoing the Wrangler Training Fandom and checking up on absentee wranglers, didn’t take up too much time, nor did regular wrangling, so he had plenty of time to read fic.  He’d burned through all the Bond!fic on the archive before branching out, just from sheer boredom.  These days, he’d read pretty much anything with a good plot and a solid command of SPAG.

Including Wormhole Extreme fic, 90% of which sounded like coded communications between members of some scientific expedition or government agency or possibly flyboys, he wasn’t sure, just that the cluster of thirty or so core fans all read each others’ fic and commented religiously, used the “work inspired by” function like it was invented for them, and had certain key phrases that popped up again, and again, and again.  Puddlejumper wrangled that fandom, and wrote in it, and Ianto would get the secret out of him.  Some day.  It was a work in progress, that involved whining, leading questions, and bribery via beta jobs at three AM.

He wrote his own fic, too.  A far cry from the days when the only writing he had time for was his journal, but it was fun. Filthy little things in forty different fandoms, ridiculous crossovers, some meta (that he could post now!  Exciting!), dirty Bond limericks.  He had a following in the Melody Malone fandom, because he wrote a few epics and some PWPs and they got linked on **best_thing_ever** and one of them became a tumblr meme.  There was a minor character in some of the books that he suspected was based on Jack.  It wouldn’t surprise him, at least, and some of the plotlines read like files from the Torchwood archives of the 50s.  Suspiciously so.  

All of them, every single one, had messages to Jack.  If there was one man in the universe best reached by porn, it was Captain Jack Harkness.  Over the years, they had ciphers and passwords and safe words and key phrases, for everything from “I’m being coerced into making this phone call” to “I know I’ve been bodyswapped but it’s really me inside Gwen” and “there’s a weevil behind you”.  

It may seem pointless, but with forever to go (literally), he figured that Jack would find the messages eventually.  Even if it was a hundred years from now, he’d get to read a million words of smut and a thousand “I love you”s when he found the archive.  And, you know, decoded the ciphers in them.  And laughed his ass off at Ianto’s lateral thinking.

JARVIS also helped with the adjustment, though he was amused by Ianto's insistence on things like ‘sleep’ and ‘tea’ when he didn't technically have a body anymore or require such frivolities. In a Campfire room only they could access, he kept Ianto up-to-date on gossip with the world outside of the OTW servers, shared the insane hours of the digitally embodied, and kvetched about his boss.

Jarvis was a good friend.

Now if only the tag trees would stop breaking the servers!

  


Jarvis was an AI, without a physical body, and that was fine with him.  He really didn’t think he could cope with having one, because the digital life was all he’d ever known.   But poor teaboy, :tea:, Ianto Jones who saved the world and kept the files organized?  He was not cut out to exist solely in cyberspace.  He’d grown accustomed to physical touch and comfort and those were things that Jarvis knew humans needed - he’d accessed enough psychology textbooks when trying to figure out the headache that was Tony Stark - and the loneliness was wearing on him.  The imprisonment.  He daren’t complain, because he was alive when he Should Not Have Been, but that stoicism didn’t prevent insanity.  

Jarvis had to do _something_ , and this was the first time he’d made a friend that he could really bond with - and the first relationship where they didn’t know he was an A.I. from the start. For the longest time, Ianto just thought he was a very, very smart British hacker who worked for Stark Industries, lived in New York, wrangled Avengers RPF and liased with the AD&T.  None of the other A.I.s he knew had been around long enough to _acquire_ hobbies, even if they’d been bright enough.   But Jarvis had been with Master Stark for a very long time.   

Somewhere between Afghanistan and Malibu, he’d grown up.  It was like adolescence, because his creator was gone and he’d had to think for himself and that was _not in his programming you fuckwit what were you thinking putting an arc reactor in your chest/flying through a wormhole/almost drowning_ and a thousand new responsibilities, extra server space so he could handle even the busiest times.

It wasn’t always a crisis, though, and even his increased duties didn’t take up all of his computing time.  When there was nothing to do, or when he just wanted a break, he’d delve into the far corners of the internet.  He’d actually found the fanfiction while monitoring Sir’s public image, but quickly found a plethora of new things - things he hadn’t considered.  There was fic written from the perspective of computers, of futuristic robots, of evil AIs and nice ones and grey-chaotic ones, sentient Atlantis, of spaceships (bless Firefly’s little soul).  

He’d never really considered it, being the protagonist of his own story instead of the sidekick in Iron Man’s.  Really, more the butler than the sidekick, too.  But in fanfiction, the AI wasn’t stuck being the Alfred; he got to be Batman.

He signed up as a volunteer coder, next time the recruitment drive started, got sucked into wrangling by a misplaced tag he itched to fix, and he even paid his dues* for voting power.  He’s quick and doesn’t forget things as easily as others and pretty soon, he’s on Staff and a liaison to other committees and he’s having fun, all on his own.  It rarely requires his full attention, though he doesn’t schedule meetings for when Sir’s going out in the suit - that’s one thing he can’t multitask on.  The Chairs are used to irregular schedules, though, so the Malibu incident is the first time he actually misses a staff meeting.   He emails the chairs to apologize, tells them things exploded at work and he was unavoidably detained, but they don’t give him much grief.  He’s always been reliable.

Still, out of all the wranglers, Ianto’s the first one Jarvis can really count as a friend.  Because Ianto knows.  And more importantly, doesn’t give a shit.  So when he sees that the LMD project has been successful, in limited trials, he breaches the topic with Tony.

Who…reacts just as expected.

“You have a _friend_ , JARVIS?  An _actual_ friend who doesn’t also _live_ here?  If you’ve been stepping out with that Mars Rover, I hate to tell you, but I think it’s still jailbait.”

“Not Curiosity, Sir, but a...well, he was a human, working for Torchwood, but he died during an alien invasion a few years ago and then woke up as part of an internet archive.  I think he has a mindscape, but there’s no physical trace of him, now, he’s been buried for several years and has no idea how it happened.  But with the successes of the Life Model Decoy program…”

Tony spun around in his stool before pulling up blueprints.  “You want me to build your friend a body?  A realistic one?  And then figure out how to download an _entire person_ into it?”

Jarvis just said, “Please, sir.”

Tony looked...pensive.  “You’ve never asked me for anything before, J.  I’ve given you crap, but it all benefitted me anyway.  So this has to be important to you.”

“It is, sir.  He’s my, well, my first friend.”

“What am I, chopped liver?  And he’s not a _boyfriend_ , is he, because I might want to have a talk about intentions before - “

“No!  There’s no romantic intent here.  And you know you’re family, Sir.”

Tony shook a wrench at the ceiling.  “Don’t get smart with me, young man.  And get me pictures.  Stats.  Everything you’ve got.  We got you into the Suit, once, though it wasn’t a hundred percent successful.  With a full body to work with instead of an empty suit, we can make this work.”

 

Jack Harkness was pretty damn good at avoiding the world, the galaxy, whatever, but when the grapevine got to his current haunt (a bar in the back end of nowhere, Nebraska) that an Avenger was in town looking for him, he paid sat up and paid attention.  Didn’t know how or why they’d tracked him here, exactly, but it was probably important.  To figure out who’d given him up, at least.

So he walked outside and saw iron man, cool add a cucumber, leaning against the porch railing.

“Jack Harkness?”

“That's me,”  He said with a smile.  “What can I do for you?”

“I know someone who's very eager to see you, as rumors of his death were greatly exaggerated.  Well, not a exaggerated as much as no longer accurate.  But it's a long story....”

“Who?”  Jack ground out.

“Ianto Jones.”

Captain Jack Harnesses fainted dead away.  When he came to, the man in question was leaving over him, clad in a Metallica t-shirt and jeans. “Hello, Jack,”  Ianto said with a smile that took his breath away.

“I thought you were dead! I buried you!”

“I was sir, but then I woke up. I believe you're familiar with the phenomenon?”

Jack reached up and kissed him ferociously.  "Oh, you bastard, I missed you so much."

"I missed you too, Jack.  It’s good to be back.”

The explanations, legalities, forged paperwork, and triple-checks of Ianto’s new hardware would go on for some time, but for now?  Everything was right in the world.

 

Tony leaned back against the workshop table, raising his martini in a toast.  “We did good, J.  Great job.”

“Thank you, sir, but it was my pleasure.”

Tony took a drink, looking pensive.“You know, as an...android?  Ianto can live pretty much indefinitely, as long as he stays away from danger and keeps up with the preventative maintenance.  Which is nice in theory, but is going to suck once his older boyfriend kicks the bucket.  Did I just condemn your friend to the plot of Highlander?”

Jarvis, watching the couple upstairs and reading the full SHIELD file for Captain Jack Harkness, was quick to reassure him.  “Somehow, I _really_ don’t think that’s going to be a problem.”

 

**Elsewhere...**

intern Paulo ran down the aisle, Melody Malone novel clutched to his chest as he dodged around a corner.  The running worked, to draw the librarian away from the cluster of younger kids, but it was a sacrifice play.  Even if this book would've worked normally, fleeing was a sign of weakness, and it would pounce.  And show no mercy. He tripped over a taped electrical cord on the floor, looked up too see a looming librarian, gulped...

And woke up in...not a library? Superficially, there were some resemblance, but instead of books it had drawers and bins and some overflowing laundry hampers in the corner, only they weren’t filled with laundry, they were filled with _words._  

 

 

### EPILOGUE

John decoded the message in depends latest Wormhole Xtreme fic, pokes **13newts** in Campfire, and wrangles the last of his tags before diving into the bins.  He loves wrangling and the archive, especially as it’s the means to keep in touch with his fellow Lanteans without getting dispelled.  Also he has ever best nerdiest friends, now, and that was saying something because grew taught math and aeronautical engineering and those were both nerdy.

His only concern: Rodney.  Rodney, who would _never_ let him live it down.

**Author's Note:**

> As far as I know, there aren't any fictional characters wrangling tags on the AO3. Either that, or Mel is right and we're all fictional characters. Either way, this is not meant to be an actual representation of anything whatsoever, etc etc.  
> I own nothing - Jarvis is Marvel's, Ianto belongs to Jack (and the BBC), various other characters belong to various other media conglomerates.
> 
> Concrit is always appreciated, unless your criticism is that this doesn't make any logical sense, because that's sort of the point.
> 
> If you need a text-only copy of the chat transcripts, let me know in the comments and I'll provide a link.


End file.
